Singular and Plural Nouns

Suffixes of Singular and Plural Nouns

There are three ways that nouns have singular and plural forms.  They can add to the singular form as in haddeti ‘root’ or hiyeni ‘rope’.  They can add to the plural form as in ciaŋi ‘animals’.  They can also add to both the singular and plural form as in hidoŋ ‘drum’ and doŋi ‘drums’.

The following are the most common singular suffixes. The number of nouns in the dictionary with each suffix is given on the left.

There is also one prefix hi- that can be added to singular nouns.

The following are the most common plural suffixes.

The following are the most common singular and plural combinations.

There are also some nouns that only differ by tone in singular and plural form. In these nouns, a double (long) vowel can be used to show the difference between singular and plural forms.